Defining Our Terms

“Bots”

are human-directed computer programs — often from viruses surreptitiously installed on hundreds of thousands of computers — that follow the bidding of a “botnet operator.”

“Botnet operators”

are malicious actors that sell or run bot traffic to commit bot fraud.

“Bot Fraud”

(technically called “non-intentional traffic”) is when crawlers are used as if they were humans to view and click online ads, stealing money from advertisers and harming the advertising ecosystem.

Making GOOD Impressions

The problem with bot fraud is that it cuts directly at the heart of what drives the internet – the fact that advertisers pay for placements that get their ads ‘seen,’ and publishers rely on the revenue driven by their quality inventory. But if an impression is served to a bot, no one is really ‘seeing’ it at all and money is being funneled into illegitimate hands. With estimates floating around that as much as one third of user traffic on the web may be fraudulent, the very metrics upon which we build intra-industry consensus can begin to feel a little wobbly. By shining a spotlight on the problem, we hope to eliminate bad impressions…while making GOOD impressions.

What Can We Do?

Solving the bot fraud problem presents a real conundrum. The challenge is that there isn’t a consensus around what constitutes bot traffic, the extent of the problem, or even how to identify it. CPXi realizes that the solution lies in industry-wide communication. We are dedicating resources to the study and dissemination of information about bot fraud. To this end, we have employed some of the industry’s top data scientists and focused their attention on the problem. This project will continue to evolve as we gain new insights that we can deliver to the industry in the hope of unifying all stakeholders in the battle against fraud.